


Meat and Potatoes

by alisso



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Food, Gen, Illnesses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alisso/pseuds/alisso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Game-playing and compromises in the relationship between two flatmates and their food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meat and Potatoes

**Author's Note:**

> Utterly uncalled for gen/pre-slash domestic fluff, based entirely around the fact that someone on Fandom Secrets said that Benedict Cumberbatch had gained weight between seasons one and two of Sherlock, and I have my own head-canon to explain this change in Sherlock. Title shamelessly nicked from the 2009 movie, but also applicable here, if massively out of context.

It started about a month after what John couldn't stop himself thinking of as The Pool Incident.

There'd been a case, a proper ten, that kept them busy for a week. Sherlock had barely eaten in that time, seeming to subsist on coffee, nicotine patches and air (if it wasn't against all logic, John would think Sherlock had joined the Breatharians). As was fitting for a ten, the case ended with Sherlock and John in the river.

The mild odour of sewerage was at least preferable to the chlorine tang he hadn't been able to get rid of for weeks after the Pool.

But what with that, and the lack of food, and the irritating witness they'd met the day before who wouldn't stop sneezing, Sherlock had, unsurprisingly, come down with a spectacular case of the sniffles.

For an entire week, John played nursemaid. When he was home, he didn't mind so much. He just had to keep the supply of tissues up, and provide a steady stream of decongestants.

Sherlock appreciated the drugs. Probably more than was healthy. John was very strict about dosages, but he wouldn't put it past Sherlock to be sneaking out during the day and buying more.

It was the constant texts while he was out that were a bother. Sherlock simply seemed to require an audience. When he was home, there were moans, and groans, and occasional random comments. When he wasn't, it was text messages.

He couldn't even leave his phone off, or on silent, or in another room. If he didn't respond in a timely fashion the frequency increased. Then the calls began. Then Sherlock started attempting to deduce things about his patients by hacking into the clinic's closed circuit tv system and harassing the receptionists over the phone.

It was easier just to reply.

By the end of the week, they were both irritable, tired and John was starting to think he was coming down with the cold as well.

It was during the next week that he noticed the change.

Sherlock was eating.

Not entire meals, not by any stretch of the imagination. He wasn't preparing things for himself, either, or even getting takeaways. But whenever John sat down at the tiny space of kitchen table he could find to eat whatever food hadn't been contaminated by the latest "experiment" in the fridge, Sherlock would wander through, or sit opposite him, or otherwise appear to have a legitimate excuse to be nearby.

At which point, he would steal John's food.

Just bits, never all that much. A few bites of curry, half a potato (eaten like an apple, despite the fact that it was still steaming), a whole chicken leg, once, but that was probably only because John had two on his plate.

The first few times, he complained. Understandably, given that he'd just sat down to a meal he'd spent time preparing, and money buying, and Sherlock was just casually stealing it. But Sherlock would just look at him, or roll his eyes, as though he was being an idiot.

To be fair, when he worked out what was going on, he did feel like a bit of an idiot.

Clearly, the cold had left an impression. Sherlock was, apparently, paying a bit more attention to the boring and mundane things such as his own health. It was encouraging to see, although he would have preferred if it had involved more cooking and exercising, and less theft.

Still, he hadn't been Sherlock's flatmate all this time without learning a few things.

It was a simple matter of managing portion sizes. A few extra mushrooms here, another piece of fish there. Sherlock could steal to his heart's content, and John still got to eat his dinner.

He did consider just making two serves of everything, but he wasn't _that_ much of an idiot. It only worked it they both pretended ignorance of what was going on.

So Sherlock kept stealing, John kept grumbling, Sherlock didn't get sick so often, and John might have gained a bit of weight whenever Sherlock was away during mealtimes for a while and he forgot to not make the extra bits, but overall, he didn't really mind so much.

It was actually rather fun, on those rare occasions he managed to be faster than Sherlock and slap the hand that was making a lighting grab for his sausage.

As games within relationships went, he'd certainly played worse.


End file.
